News Section

Blue Valley Tele-Communications, along with the rest of the U.S. rural telecommunications industry, has spent the last year battling the National Broadband Plan implemented by the Federal Communications Commission. The rules in this plan impact not only rural telephone companies like BVTC but also all rural communities across the U.S.

Alfred Lapaz testifies before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on how changes to the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) will affect the ability of rural, community-based telecommunications providers to deliver affordable voice and broadband services to American Indians.

‘I believe in looking reality straight in the eye,” the radio host Garrison Keillor once said, “and denying it!” This sounds like the approach taken by some government agencies when they announce they are “reforming” some major policy.

Though it’s tough to believe, not all homes in the U.S. had telephone service until the mid-1990s. It was in 1997 that the Universal Service Fund (USF) was created to support landline expansion because, at the time, access to this service was considered imperative for involvement in society.

In blistering testimony last week, Alaska's lawmakers grilled the FCC about the way its reform of support for smaller communication companies might well hurt the very people it is trying to help — especially in Alaska.

Communication is a given today — to operate in today's marketplace, one must have high-speed internet, and it is that truth that prompted the FCC to migrate subsidies and support from phone systems to wired or wireless broadband systems. But in many areas of Alaska, that could do a lot more harm than good. Though the FCC could not tell Sen. Lisa Murkowski nor Rep. Don Young how much Alaska companies stood to lose as the FCC migrates away from "legacy phone support" starting July 1, it doesn't sound good.

Adak Island lies in the Bering Sea 1,200 miles from Anchorage and neither cyclone winds, tsunamis nor unexploded artillery from its days as a World War II base prevents its 326 or so residents from expecting a high-speed Internet connection to the rest of the world.

That service may end soon for some because of a fight with federal regulators over subsidies.

Senator Jon Tester is taking his fight for rural broadband internet access straight to the President.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently developed a nationwide plan to reform the way resources are allocated and invested in broadband internet infrastructure. The plan could hurt Montana’s small businesses by discouraging broadband investment in rural America.

The Federal Communications Commission came under some fire Thursday in a Senate committee for the impact of Universal Service Fund reforms on carriers serving Native lands, which are being implemented beginning July 1.

Those reforms include phasing out some legacy phone support as the FCC migrates to wired and wireless broadband, legacy support smaller carriers have been using to secure long-term loans made by another government agency, the Agricultural Department's Rural Utilities service (RUS). Senate Indian Affairs Committee chairman Daniel Kahikina Akaka (D-Hawaii) said Thursday that the FCC's Universal Service reforms have "disproportionate and potentially dangerous" impacts on Native communities.

Alfred Lapaz testifies before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on how changes to the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) will affect the ability of rural, community-based telecommunications providers to deliver affordable voice and broadband services to American Indians.

Shirley Bloomfield testifies before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on how changes to the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) will affect the ability of rural, community-based telecommunications providers to deliver affordable voice and broadband services to American Indians, Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives.

A federal revamp of telecommunications access programs is threatening the status quo of Iowa’s small, independent telecommunications companies. And the effects could force some of those businesses to consolidate or close down, those in the industry contend.

Worries that the Federal Communications Commission will change how it doles out Universal Service Fund monies--and how much of that money it sends to truly rural operators--has led northern Minnesota telephone cooperative Paul Bunyan Communications to apply the brakes to a $19 million broadband expansion for about 28,000 customers.

Although their adoption remains uncertain, proposed federal rules that change a key area of funding for rural telecommunications companies already are affecting North Dakota's service providers.

The proposed rules revise the way money is distributed to telecoms from a Universal Service Fund. The fund's income comes from fees paid by telecoms and passed on to customers. Its purpose has been to assist in rural areas where providing essential telephone service is more costly.

A northern Minnesota telephone cooperative has put a $19 million broadband expansion on hold because of federal changes that in fact are aimed at extending high-speed Internet access in rural areas.

Bemidji-based Paul Bunyan Communications, which provides service to some 28,000 phone customers, is slowing down an aggressive expansion of fiber optic cable because the Federal Communications Commission is shifting how it allocates money in what is known as the Universal Service Fund.